Posts Tagged ‘health’

It would be pretty hard to avoid the news about sugar: it’s bad for us. Diets high in sugar contribute mightily to the nation’s burgeoning problems of obesity and diabetes and may even be a factor in dementia. But sugar in its crop form is also proving to be deadly. The cause and effect, however, is as murky as a cloudy day in the rainforest.
Will Shorr has written a remarkable, hands-on article in the Guardian, examining the high rates of chronic kidney disease (CKD) among the workers who grow and harvest sugar cane in Central America. CKD is the second leading killer of men in El Salvador.
Why are sugar cane workers succumbing to kidney disease? Is it the working conditions? Is it the pesticides? Is it the diet of the workers? Fingers are pointing in a number of directions, and by the time the truth is sorted out, we may well find a toxic trail that includes of all three factors.Dehydration
Nicaragua Sugar Estates, one of Central America’s largest plantations, has conducted its own internal studies, one of which identified one potential factor in the disease: “strenuous labour with exposure to high environmental temperatures without an adequate hydration program.” .Nonetheless, a company spokesman denies the connection: “We’re convinced that we have nothing to do with kidney disease. Our productive practices do not generate and are not causal factors for CKD.”
But researchers in the US have connected CKD to heat stress and dehydration. A standard day for an El Salvadorian sugar worker lasts between four and five hours, with double shifts during the summer planting season, when temperatures top out at 104 degrees.
Shorr quotes Héctor García, a 33 year old with stage-two kidney failure: “It’s very hot; we suffer. People sometimes collapse. More often they vomit, especially when the heat is worse. They do two shifts to earn more money.” Another worker, 40 years old and close to death with stage five CKD, reported the same symptoms, compounded by the limited resources in his home: “When I come home, I feel surrendered. Sick. Headache. I can’t shower because the water [from the roof-mounted tank] is too hot.” The image of the hand-rigged shower, full of very hot water, epitomizes the wretched living conditions of the workers.
Compounding the problem, most CKD sufferers do not even know they are ill: the disease is asymptomatic until its last, most deadly stages. Even when they feel unwell, many workers go into denial – they feel helpless, as they cannot afford the medication or the recommended diet of fresh vegetables and chicken breast. Dialysis – the last hope of the ill – is often avoided, because most of the workers who go on it end up dead anyway, so it appears to their co-workers that dialysis causes the death.Chemicals
Researchers have found rates of CKD in cane cutters and seed cutters – the most strenuous jobs – to be higher than in pesticide applicators, who have greater exposure to agrochemicals. This seems to indicate that the pesticides are not a significant factor. But this conclusion may be premature.
Five chemicals are used in the cultivation of sugar cane: amine, terbutryn, pendimethalin, 2,4-D and atrazine. Shorr sent the chemical recipe for the yellow potion he observed being sprayed on the crops to Professor Andrew Watterson of the University of Stirling – an authority on agrochemicals and health. They were all herbicides, he noted. Watterson came up with a litany of potential problems:

Atrazine can cause kidney damage at high levels; acute exposure to 2.4-D can cause chronic kidney damage; pendimethalin is “harmful through skin contact and inhalation”; in lab tests, long-term feeding of terbutryn to rats caused kidney damage. None of them are acutely toxic, but this combination, plus the tropical climate, could worsen their effects.

On the prevention side, sprayers are supposed to avoid contact with skin; to wear face shields, respiratory protection, rubber boots and specialist coveralls. We can only surmise that such protective equipment, while technically useful, would be difficult to use in 100 degree weather. On the other hand, assuming the sprayers are protected, other workers do not wear protection and may thus experience greater exposures to the chemicals.Sugar in the Diet?
Shorr concludes his article with a shocking new study that points in yet another direction. Richard Johnson, of the University of Colorado’s Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, thinks the problem might have its genesis in a mechanism that his team discovered in rats. Johnson speculates that if dehydrated workers with already sugary kidneys are rehydrating with soft drinks or fruit juice, they may experience a potentially explosive fructose load. He adds that “it’s not proven, so we don’t want to get ahead of the gun here [rather unfortunate metaphor].” The research has not as-yet been published. But Johnson goes on to say that the experimental data is quite compelling, and it “could explain what’s going on.”
It would truly be ironic if the cane field workers were dying from kidney failure in part because they use sugary soft drinks to rehydrate. “Buy the world a Coke” indeed!Collateral Damage?
While it is too early to draw definitive conclusions, the Guardian article identifies at least three converging factors in the high CKD rates among field workers: extremely high heat compounded by hydration problems; a mix of potentially harmful pesticides; and an unhealthy diet too full of sweetened beverages. Add the impoverished living conditions of the workers – and marginal medical care – and you have all the makings of an abbreviated lifespan.
The US gets 23% of the its raw sugar from Central America; the European Union spends more than €4.7m on this import. Sugar is El Salvador’s second-biggest export. This is big business. With so much money at stake, the dying workers are little more than collateral damage. It appears that what they really need is an ample supply of clear, cool water, but such a simple remedy, alas, is nowhere in sight.

We have seen that America spends more on health care than other developed democracies around the world for outcomes that, on the whole, are no better than those achieved by the average OECD country. Our health care “system” perpetuates ever-increasing spending without delivering results to justify the expense. Moreover, because of our country’s isolation, both geographically and culturally, few Americans actually know about or appreciate this disparity. In the words of that eminent philosopher, Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
But not all the news is gloom and doom. We lead the world in medical technological innovation, and we have chosen to target this expensive technology at some very thorny problems. Further, statistics don’t always tell the whole or true story. Sometimes, one needs to lift up the rug and check what’s lying underneath.
Take infant mortality, for example.
The best place to find infant mortality data is (drum roll): the US Central Intelligence Agency, which tracks the rate of infant deaths in 241 countries around the world in its World Facts Book.
Currently, the CIA shows Angola, with 184 deaths per 1,000 births, as having the highest infant mortality rate (IMR) in the world, 241st out of 241. That is, more than 18% of Angola’s infants die shortly after birth. In fact, with the exception of Afghanistan, the 24 countries with the world’s highest infant mortality rates are all in Africa. It has long been known that IMR directly correlates with a nation’s per capita GDP.
At the other end of the scale, Singapore, a high-GDP country, ranks first, with the world’s lowest infant mortality rate – 2.3 deaths per 1,000 births, followed by Sweden, Japan, Hong Kong, Iceland and France.
And where in this mix is the United States you may ask. Well, with a rate of 6.37, we rank number 41 in the world.
Or do we? It all depends on how one treats the numbers, because not everyone defines infant mortality the same way. The most common definition is: the number of deaths of infants, one year or younger, per 1,000 live births. The question is – what is a live birth? The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a live birth as “any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, voluntary muscle movement, or heartbeat.” However, the United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. And the US is far more aggressive and advanced in attacking and treating significant neonatal complications. Visit any major teaching hospital’s neonatal ICU and you’ll see what I mean. The inference is that the US’s actual comparative infant mortality rate may actually be lower, perhaps much lower, than is statistically reported.
But those neonatal ICUs cost a lot of money. It’s an investment the US has chosen to make, unlike most other countries, and it is symptomatic of why we spend so much more than the rest of the world on health care.
Of course, if you spend a few minutes talking with a mother and father who have just brought a young child home, healthy and smiling, after six months, of so, in one of those expensive, neonatal ICUs, you might be excused for thinking, as they surely do, that the cost is worth every penny.Prior entries in this series:Part Three: What Do We Get for the Money?Part Two – What does it cost?Part One: The best Health Care Plan in America

In Part One of this series, we began looking at some of the many cost disparities between group health and workers’ compensation.
In Part Two, we compared US health care costs with costs in the other 29 member-countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). OECD countries, all democracies, are considered the most economically advanced in the world. We saw that health care spending in the US is a breathtaking 250% greater than the average for all of these developed democracies. Moreover, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), health care made up 15.3% of the US economy in 2004 – up from 5.1% in 1960 – nearly double the rest of the OECD.
Today, it’s time to examine what we’re getting for all that money. It seems fair to ask a few questions relative to the other OECD countries:
1. Do we live longer?
2. Are we healthier?
3. What other factors could affect how the health of US citizens compares with OECD citizens?Do we live longer than people in other OECD countries?
Simply put, we spend a lot more on healthcare than all other OECD countries, but don’t live any longer for the money. In fact, we live shorter lives than most.
As of 2004, average life expectancy at birth in the US was 77.5 years, which ranks 22nd out of the 30 OECD countries. While this is slightly below the OECD average, it is four and a half years less than top-ranked Japan. Also, it may surprise readers to learn that life expectancy is two and a half years longer among the people of our neighbor to the north, Canada. And, despite all the editorial bashing of the UK’s National Health System, its citizens outlast us by a full year, while people in Spain, France, and Italy live, on average, more than two years longer than we do.Are we healthier?
For all the money we spend on healthcare one would think we enjoy Olympian health, but this does not appear to be the case. Although it pains me to write this, I can find no peer-reviewed studies that conclude that we are a healthier people than our OECD neighbors.
The OECD provides specific disease incidence data in two areas: cancer (malignant neoplasms) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In both cases, the US has the highest rates in the OECD. The incidence of cancer in the United States is 34% higher than the average within the OECD (358 cases per 100,000 people versus 266). With respect to AIDS, the US incidence is an astonishing 675% higher than the rest of the OECD (147 cases per 100,000 people versus 19 in the OECD). Our mortality rate due to AIDS ranks second in the OECD (4.2 deaths per 100,000 people, well behind the staggering rate of 8.6 in Portugal). Yet our mortality rate for cancer ranks only 14th among OECD countries.
What about obesity, reputed by many to be epidemic in the US? With the exception of the UK and the US, which get their obesity statistics by actually measuring people, OECD countries get their results from surveys, so the only fair comparison is the US versus the UK. In 2004, while the UK’s overweight population was 14% higher than that in the US, our obese population was 39% greater.
On the other hand, the US rate of alcohol consumption and incidence of daily smoking were both lower than the average for OECD countries (daily smoking in the US is the third lowest (17%) of all OECD members).
Unfortunately, obesity has been shown to be a greater driver of health care and health care spending than alcohol consumption or smoking – “the effects of obesity are similar to 20 years of aging (PDF).” According to Thorpe, et al, (The Impact of Obesity on Rising Medical Spending (PDF), Health Affairs, 20 October 2004), 27% of the per capita increase in US health care spending between 1987 and 2001 was attributable to obesity. There is a direct correlation between obesity and Type 2 diabetes and obesity and hypertension. Is it any wonder that in the last thirty years Type 2 diabetes and hypertension have seen explosive growth in the US?What other factors could affect how the health of US citizens compares with OECD citizens?
There are many other factors that have been identified as influencing how the health of Americans compares with the rest of the OECD. Some of these are:
1. The age of our population – While this will be a concern in the immediate future as baby boomers grow older, currently 12% of the US population is older than 65, which is below the OECD average of 14%.
2. Income and insurance – The US is unique in the OECD, because it does not have a national insurance program. About 60% of us are covered by some form of employer-provided insurance. Another 26% are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. That leaves 14% who are uninsured in any way. Among this group, most of whom are poor and many of whom are sick, healthcare often goes a-begging, with harmful results. For example, hypertension is less controlled in this group, “sufficiently so that the annual likelihood of death in that group rose approximately 10%.” (Newhouse et al, Free for All? Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, Harvard University Press, 1993).
Twenty-two OECD countries provide more than 98% of their citizens with public health insurance covering at least hospital and in-patient care. Despite this, Americans spend less out-of-pocket than the people of most other OECD countries – 13.2%. The OECD average is nearly 20%. Studies have shown that when a people pay less out-of-pocket for healthcare, total spending rises.
3. Sophisticated medical procedures – In the movie Pat and Mike, Spencer Tracy famously said of Katherine Hepburn, “There’s not much meat on her, but what there is is choice.” The same can be said for hospitalizations in the US. Although hospital stays are fewer and shorter, a lot of high-powered activity goes on.
For example, the US ranks in the top five OECD countries for the rate of caesarean section childbirths as well as all forms of organ transplants with the exception of lung transplants. Moreover, we’re in the top five for all four of the heart procedures on which the OECD collects data. We perform coronary bypass surgery and angioplasties at more than double the rate of the OECD average. Finally, we perform far more coronary revascularization procedures than any other OECD country. Despite performing substantially more invasive heart procedures than all other OECD countries, death rates for heart disease in the US are the 17th worst in the entire group.
4. Advertising – Between 1996 and 2003, pharmaceutical advertising quadrupled. Turn on the nightly news and count the ads for prescription drugs. Only two countries in the world allow this, the US and New Zealand. I find it amazing that more than 75% of the brands advertised had ROIs of more than 50%. Clearly, Americans respond to direct-to- consumer drug advertising, which is one reason why we spend double the OECD average on prescription drugs.How does this all relate to workers’ compensation?
We’ve seen that, despite spending more on healthcare than any other country in the world, Americans don’t live longer or enjoy better health than citizens of any other OECD country. But every day, medicine practiced within workers’ compensation depends entirely on the US healthcare “system,” if we want to go so far as to call it that. It’s certainly systemic, but perhaps systemic in a lot of the wrong ways.Prior entries in this series:Part Two – What does it cost?Part One: The best Health Care Plan in America

In 1992 I became a Trustee of a major, tertiary care, teaching hospital in Massachusetts. For Trustee indoctrination, new Trustees spent a week in a classroom learning about every facet of hospital life. One morning we were briefed by the hospital’s CFO. I was astonished to learn that the hospital had 27 different billing systems, one for each insurer and HMO with which it did business. To me, this was Kafkaesque. I mention it now, because in the intervening years, the situation has become worse, much worse.
At 31% of total US health care expenditures, the administrative costs of healthcare providers are double those in Canada (Woolhandler et al, New England Journal of Medicine, August 21, 2003, page 768), and, with the exception of tiny Luxembourg (population 425,000), America’s health administration and insurance costs are the highest of any of the world’s developed democracies.
We spend more, far more, than any other country in the world on health care. Do we get what we pay for? In Parts Two and Three of this series on health care, we examine that question. In Parts Four and Five we relate it all to workers’ compensation, at 3% to 4%, a tiny room in the American health care house that Jack built.
The US compared with other developed countries: The cost explosion.
The United States has been a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development since the OECD’s founding in 1961 (the forerunner of the OECD was the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, set up under the Marshall Plan in 1947). There are 30 member-countries of the OECD, all democracies, most of which are thought to be the most economically advanced nations in the world.
In September, 2007, the US Congressional Research Service, the best research group you’ve never heard of, published a report for Congress titled, “U.S. Health Care Spending: Comparison with Other OECD Countries.” (Abstract , including downloadable full report in PDF.) This 60-page, well sourced report paints a grim, if occasionally confusing picture.
Until 1980, US spending on health care, as measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) ranked at the high end of OECD countries, but not excessively so. In 1980, US spending as a share of GDP was 8.8%, which compared favorably to Sweden’s 9.0%, Denmark’s 8.9%, Ireland’s 8.3% and the Netherlands 7.2%. True, spending in the United Kingdom, at 5.6%, France and Norway, at 7.0%, each, and Canada, at 7.1%, was lower, but no one could claim that the US spending was out of control.
Then something happened. By 1990, our spending as a share of GDP had grown to 11.9%, while the rest of the OECD countries remained fairly static – Sweden’s and Denmark’s declined to 8.3%, the UK’s rose to 6.0%, and so on. And by 2003, the US share had ballooned to 15.3%, nearly three percentage points higher than Switzerland, at the time our closest competitor. In fact, in 2004, the OECD average spending as a percentage share of GDP, excluding the US, was 8.6%, just over half of the US share.
In the average OECD country nearly 74% of healthcare costs are publicly financed; in the US, less than 45 %. Moreover, per capita health care spending in OECD countries, excluding the US is $2,438; in the US, per capita spending is 250% higher, at $6,102.
When analyzing why the US spends so much more on health care, one hardly knows where to begin, because in nearly every category we dwarf the field.
Take prescription drugs, for example. Average per capita spending on pharmaceuticals among all OECD countries, including the US is $383, but in the US it is $752, which is $153 dollars per person more than the second largest spender, France. Despite this, because the US spends so much on all of health care, pharmaceuticals account for only 12.3% of total spending, which is near the bottom of the pack among all OECD countries where average spending on pharmaceuticals is 17.8%.
One would think, perhaps, that spending is so much higher in the US because we have more hospitalization, or doctor visits per capita, but one would be wrong. Hospital discharges per 1,000 people in the US are 25% lower than the average for all OECD countries, and doctor visits are 42% lower.
Well, maybe people have significantly more intense and aggressive service while they are hospitalized in the US? One indicator of intensity is the average length of acute care hospital stay. In the US, the length of acute hospital stay is 5.6 days, which is less than all but eight of the other 29 OECD countries. But shorter stays could mean higher efficiency. A better way to look at it is to look at specific causes for hospital stays, like heart attacks, for instance. The US average hospital stay following acute myocardial infarction is 5.5 days, the lowest in the OECD.
Consider childbirth. Here the US has the third-lowest rate of stay, 1.9 days – much shorter than the OECD average of 3.6 days.
Another reason for high costs in the US is our aggressive testing. Only Japan has more CT scanners and MRI units per million people.
And, although doctors will roll their eyes when they read this, still another reason for our higher costs is physician compensation. At an average of $230,000 and $161,000 for specialist and general practitioner pay, respectively, each of these groups earns more than double their OECD counterparts.
Clearly then, there is no denying that, for whatever reasons, the US outspends its OECD partners by a long shot. The question that has to be asked is: Are we getting what we are paying for? All of us, taxpayers, employers, employees and individuals – the collective “we.”
That will be the subject of Part Three in this series.Prior posts in this series:Part 1: The best health care plan in America

Today is Health Wonk Review day, so grab a coffee and click on over to Colorado Health Insurance Insider where host Jay Norris has amassed a great compilation of links. Unsurprisingly, Michael Moore’s Sicko is the focus of the lion’s share of today’s posts; that, and the ongoing debate about the best approach to fix the health care system.
Even if you live in Florida or New York, don’t let the “Colorado” in the title dissuade you from taking a closer look at the host blog. Jay Norris and his wife Louise are savvy health insurance consultants. Their blog is filled with thoughtful and useful information, and it’s fun to read, too!

Richard Eskow of The Sentinel Effect is hosting this week’s edition of Health Wonk Review and he’s seeing double. It’s a 24-issue post, so dig in for some good reading. Health Wonk Review is truly becoming a force in the health care policy arena – I’d be surprised if there were any other nook or cranny on the web with a savvier grouping of health care folks who represent all aspects of the industry.
Our host of the week, Richard Eskow, is a case in point. He’s CEO of Health Knowledge Systems (HKS) in Los Angeles and a consultant specializing in health care and insurance administration, IT, strategic planning, medical management, health policy, marketing, finance, and communications. You may even have seen or heard him on the news – he’s been interviewed on MSNBC, Fox News Radio, and Air America Radio. His blog is definitely one to add to your regular roster for health care reading. He takes the title The Sentinel Effect from “the theory that productivity and outcomes can be improved through the process of observation and measurement.”